The prospects for proper human freedom appear to be waning in this age of brazen usurpation and other governmental corruption. It is everywhere one turns, no matter what the nation.

There are those of us who recognize that the proper freedom of a man means he may act as he pleases, so long as he does not violate the rights of his fellows. This is the very definition of autodiathism (http://freedomisobvious.blogspot.com/2012/12/autodiathism.html), which is equivalent to anarchy, minus the negative connotations.

In a closer-to-ideal world, humanity would return to its roots of autodiatistic governance, where each man governed himself, respected the rights of others to do the same, and generally minded his own business.

We do not, however, live in that world. Today's world is rife with one man's disrespect for his fellows. It is full of morbid greed, bitter envy, destructive levels of hatred, and the nearly bottomless ignorance that leads him to believe that these conditions are inherently part and parcel with life as a human being and cannot be avoided. He therefore comes to the belief that he must learn to optimally take advantage of these inescapable features of human relations such that he "wins" this undefined game of desire running amok, no matter who gets hurt. The only real rule in that game is: don't get caught at anything for which you may be held accountable. Today, that risk shrinks almost by the minute, particularly for those brazen enough to act boldly in pursuit of their self-interest at the expense of their fellows.

The chances of a land such as America returning to a societal and cultural structure of governance that is fully autodiathistic is just this side of zero. The chances that "the state (http://freedomisobvious.blogspot.com/2010/03/state.html)" will disappear through a return of humanity to its senses are not at all good, so far as I can see. This is largely due to the deeply ingrained set of basic assumptions under which virtually all men labor such that in their minds they cannot so much as conceive of a world where no state exists, much less that it could function in any manner other than utter, terminal chaos.

Let us remind ourselves that mind is everything; your thoughts form your reality. Therefore, if your basic assumptions preclude the possibility of pure self-determination for each member of a given society of men, it then becomes impossible such that your mind becomes incapable of conceiving it as plausible. The imagination becomes limited in that direction and one becomes incapable of fabricating the mental potential for such a thing. The mind, being unable to go there, withdraws and rejects the notion out of hand and the status quo is thereby preserved. This is the way in which people are kept as prisoners in a dark-age; mostly by their own hands directly after accepting the limiting assumptions fed them by third parties.

And so it is for the vast and overwhelming majority of humanity who, having taken in that particular assumption that the world would fall to ruin in the absence of "the state", they become strongly incapable and unwilling to so much as consider the possibility of self-governance. There is a whole litany of associated boogeymen that frighten or otherwise fail to appeal to such people such they many become irate and even prone to emotional violence in their rejection of the notion. Just one example: responsibility. True freedom requires of men they be fully responsible and accountable for every act; what they say, what they do, how they think and feel. In a world where men have been heavily trained away from being responsible, this idea rests bitterly upon their tongues, however subconsciously, and therefore leaves them shaking their heads at it and walking away as quickly as their mental legs will carry them from it.

Thus far, we have examined a primary reason why proper human freedom may never again see the light of day. But what if some significant subpopulation of the world's humanity were swayed? What if, for example, the people of America could be somehow convinced that autodiathism is in fact the light and the only way forward that does not involve compulsory servitude, poverty, and misery for the average man? What would then happen?

Would America suddenly become this island of bright and shining liberty in the midst of the vast oceans of global oppression and despair; a safe harbor for those yearning for the levity and invigoration of blessèd liberty?

No.

Why, you ask? Precisely because of the remaining plague of global brutality running rampant across the world. The despot seeks, at the very least, to retain the grips he holds on power at any given moment, never to give up the least epsilon of it. In practical reality, the tyrant's deeper wish is to grow that power by whatever means he may find fitting. The tyrant tends strongly to see power as a zero-sum, meaning that if he wants more, he must steal it from someone else.

Returning the the initial point of preserving what he has, the despotic leader can in no possible way tolerate the existence of anything "better" than that which he offers his own serfs. This is because that which people deem as "better" and is beheld as possible for others becomes desired for themselves. This desire naturally pits the wishes of the common man against those of the autocrat, and he who wields the power simply cannot tolerate such competition of desires and expect to retain his power. This is why societies such as the Soviet Union blacked out the truth regarding the western world, for it would only lead to desires that conflicted with those of the Supreme Soviet. China and North Korea remain as such to their respective degrees by state limitation of internet access, for example.

The tyrants of the world would flirt with political and possibly physical suicide, were they to tolerate the existence of even a single nation where people were self-governing and free to go about their business so long as they did not bring harm to others. This is an outrage and affront to all who seek to dominate their fellows, and as such it must be eliminated. No free land is safe in the company of external tyranny.

Add to that the mere fact that such a land would stand only to become highly enriched such that it would come to represent a golden egg so large and appealing that leaders of the other nations would find it impossible to resist the attempt to take it. The long and miserable path of our history attests to this worst of all human habits.

Therein lies the two central reasons why a purely free land would likely fall to the predations of its neighbors. Such a land would, at least for some period, lack the organization of its despotic global neighbors. In so lacking, it would stand militarily vulnerable to material encroachment, looting, and eventual reabsorption into the cancerous fold of authoritarianism.

This is absolutely key as to understanding why pure autodiathism cannot simply pop up in a technologically advanced world and expect to survive the longer haul, no matter how enlightened the local population may have become. Everything autodiathism implies, which includes a society based on 100% agorism (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agorism), would stand vulnerable to more centrally-organized and presumably predatory nations - at least for a while.

For some period, what we may call that of "adjustment", an anarchic land whose political culture was based on naught but contract, would remain less materially powerful than those lands it philosophically, morally, and functionally left in the dust. The people would have to learn how to apply voluntary engagement to functions such as that of national defense, which is the SINGLE consideration where centralization, properly carried forth and executed, leads to a superior capability.

It is a sad truth of this world, which is rapidly flinging itself back into a dark-age, that where militarism is concerned, all nations wishing to survive as such must do one of two things: shrink away and toe the lines of globalist tyranny in the hope of remaining uninteresting to those more materially powerful than themselves, or become sufficiently strong to discourage predation by one's neighbors. Neither option is particularly appealing, the former leading to a dreary gray existence of constant dread, devoid of all joy; the latter being materially wasteful to a degree that nauseates and appalls all decent men, for war is the ultimate obscenity of waste and stupidity.

This then, leads us to what I believe may be the only practical path to freedom that holds in its hand longer-term survivability: Minarchy (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minarchism), which is roughly defined as:

"...a libertarian political philosophy which advocates for a particular variety of minimal state that acts only to enforce a universal framework of natural and legal rights essential to the functioning of a free marketplace in economy and culture, and operating through a limited government."

There is more to the definition as per wikipedia (yes, I know) but those elements are extraneous and to my eyes at least partly disagreeable. Suffice for our purposes here that this is a reasonable working definition.

The one advantage of a proper minarchist state would be the organization and broad management of the military function. Without a sufficient military capability, the free and agorist land would remain deeply vulnerable to the designs of conquest its less-than-free neighbors would doubtlessly contrive in their envy, lust, and fear.

I must, however, be clear that it is at least possible that such a state need not remain in perpetuity. I do believe, however unlikely seeming at this time, that the potential exists for humans to evolve beyond their desires for conquest. Given sufficient training and habituation to the grand virtues of proper freedom, and coupled with the continuing material advances of our technologies, it seems clear that predation by one group of men upon another might become a wholly unappealing notion. Given that a vast number would presumably be sufficiently trained to the arts of self-defense, well armed with said technologically advanced weaponry, and all in the context where far more profitable endeavors were freely available to one and all for nothing more than the cost of having a dream and being willing to pursue it, notions of conquest would lose their shine. Such a situation would constitute the ultimate carrot and stick arrangement: be cool and prosper beyond your wildest dreams on the one hand, or be a schmuck and likely die or be horribly maimed, on the other.

And let us not judge this possibility for plausibility based on the current level of average human perception and applied intelligence. It is clear that such a land could only come to exist where the people have gotten their proper clues, accepted them, and aligned their daily practices and life philosophies with them. As has been quipped before: freedom and stupidity are mutually and violently incompatible.

In summary, I contend that the path to real freedom is long, slowly trodden, and always fraught with risk such that a population cannot jump instantly from tyranny to freedom from one minute to the next. Those surrounding you will not tolerate it due to fear, envy, and hatred. Therefore, the slow ramping upward from the depths of despotism and servitude must be the reality such that the transfer of material power is gradually made from the hands of the few to those of the many, as all parties are learning how to do what is needed without falling prey to the evils that surround them in other lands and even in one's own, for we cannot safely assume that consensus would be universal.

This slow ramp-up implies the medial goal of a minarchist state. Some purists may chafe, but ask yourself this: what would you prefer today, right now - a minarchy where your rights were actually respected but where some central authority remained, or what we currently enjoy?

I see minarchy as an essential step toward better times for our posterity, with the ultimate goal being that of complete and proper freedom such that one day men will be able to pursue life truly on their own terms in accord with the principles of proper human relations. (http://freedomisobvious.blogspot.com/2015/04/the-canon-of-proper-human-relations.html)

Until next time, please accept my best wishes.

The Gold Standard

09-24-2016, 09:53 AM

Add to that the mere fact that such a land would stand only to become highly enriched such that it would come to represent a golden egg so large and appealing that leaders of the other nations would find it impossible to resist the attempt to take it. The long and miserable path of our history attests to this worst of all human habits.

This is precisely why a "minarchy" would be a waste of time. It's not just the leaders of other nations that would try to take the golden egg.

The Gold Standard

09-24-2016, 10:02 AM

I also don't see this as any more practical than having no state at all. If you try to talk to Boobus about anarchy, you get the usual police, military, roads nonsense. If you answer those questions, they go on to social security, poor people dying in the streets, pollution, and other bullshit that they can't imagine the government not taking care of for them. If you can truly convince someone of the importance of property rights, then they will eventually find their way to anarchy, so there's no need for a stop off at minarchy.

Natural Citizen

09-24-2016, 11:23 AM

Very good, grasshoppa. Good questions there in the op. I'm winging it here and working with one arm pinky shifting and whatnot so I won't bother trying to pop off a few paragraphs. What I will add to this in more concise terms is that the measure of The Individual's worth where matters of his liberty are concerned is decided by his determination to make a claim to its benefits. That is to say that only worthy men may lay claim to the title of free men. I'm gonna trade slings later on so maybe I can add more.

Good thoughts there in the op, though. There's so much manufacturered political drama around here these days that we don't take the time to think about relevant things.

osan

09-24-2016, 01:54 PM

This is precisely why a "minarchy" would be a waste of time. It's not just the leaders of other nations that would try to take the golden egg.

You're not being clear. Please elaborate.

The Gold Standard

09-24-2016, 01:59 PM

You're not being clear. Please elaborate.

It's not just the leaders of other nations that would try to take the golden egg. The leaders of the minarchist nation would take it too.

osan

09-24-2016, 02:07 PM

I also don't see this as any more practical than having no state at all.

May I then take your meaning here to be that it is your belief that when you erect a giant temple of gold with no apparent means of defending it, your bitterly covetous neighbors will pose no threat in the form of marching in with their standing armies, killing anyone opposing them, and march away with every brick and woman worth the raping?

If you try to talk to Boobus about anarchy, you get the usual police, military, roads nonsense. If you answer those questions, they go on to social security, poor people dying in the streets, pollution, and other bullshit that they can't imagine the government not taking care of for them. If you can truly convince someone of the importance of property rights, then they will eventually find their way to anarchy, so there's no need for a stop off at minarchy.

That's a REALLY big "if".

It is THE big "if", in fact.

It is precisely because you cannot convince your tyranny-bound neighbors of this that you need to be able to defend your system. Did you not read the entire post? I laid out every essential factor in justifying this single and only purpose behind the so-called "state". Note that I made no suggestion as to how this arrangement might be made, save to imply that it is voluntary in nature.

We could argue the details all day long, to be sure. But that was not my purpose. Rather, it was my objective to make clear that threats and obstacles to the longer-term practice of optimal (v. optimum) liberty remain even when every last soul in the land is on board fully with the principles of proper human relations. No population lives in a vacuum in this era of technological enablement. What I do in America, regardless of how clearly superior, morally sound, and all around fabulous it all may be, will have to be defended against predation.

If a body of military might is not your vision of effective protection against one's fearful and avaricious neighbors, then what is? Show us how you would do it to the level of detail that would make your plan sensible to reason and logic.

osan

09-24-2016, 02:16 PM

It's not just the leaders of other nations that would try to take the golden egg. The leaders of the minarchist nation would take it too.

That is a valid assumption. My answer to that is that these so-called "leaders" have no authority beyond the management of the military. I would add that any man in the land would be authorized to take whatever measures were necessary to prevent such things from happening. This is precisely why I wrote that sufficient numbers would be trained in the arts of defense and well armed such that any attempt to violate the rights of the people could and would be stopped dead in its tracks without hesitation, equivocation, or reticence.

It seems you are getting stuck on a detail without keeping in mind the broader circumstance. As I wrote in the OP, freedom and stupidity cannot coexist for very long. Therefore, a free land must by definition be one of clued-in people, both in terms of intelligence, smarts, and attitude. With this condition, we could not preserve a free land. Look around you and it is clear that what I say is true.

Tywysog Cymru

09-24-2016, 02:22 PM

I've never thought that Anarcho-Capitalism is realistic. Without a military another country could come right in and impose their government on anarchy land.

heavenlyboy34

09-24-2016, 03:22 PM

Minarchy is the path to liberty in the same way socialism is the path to the Communist Workers' Paradise. #minarchyisaunicorn

heavenlyboy34

09-24-2016, 03:23 PM

I've never thought that Anarcho-Capitalism is realistic. Without a military another country could come right in and impose their government on anarchy land.
LOL :D Kinda like how 'Murica imposed its minarchy on Iraqistan, eh? ;) #minarchyisadelusion

presence

09-24-2016, 06:34 PM

The only path to freedom is through contract consented to by all parties.

PaulConventionWV

09-25-2016, 01:03 AM

I've come to realize there is no real path to freedom. The forefathers, when they said the tree of liberty must be watered from time to time with the blood of tyrants, didn't just mean they had to keep killing people who tried to usurp power (at least to my understanding), but rather that tyranny would come for a time and nobody would even realize it and then it would get bad enough that there would be a revolution.

The only real path to freedom, as I've come to consider, is not to seek a revolution or figure out the best governmental formula, but rather agorism, or the idea that you should simply mind your own business and do your thing until somebody comes and tries to interfere with it. I'm in the nominally communist China and I've found that people don't really talk about politics over here, and it actually seems to work out quite a bit better for society. The police don't harass you much and there aren't that many regulations on business as far as zoning and safety regulations are concerned. Although there are many bad things about the Chinese government, including its gun policy, people at least aren't under the impression that they can somehow change things by voting, so they don't really concern themselves with politics. Instead, they're highly driven to succeed in business and learn skills that help them or others in life. Crazy as it seems, I think it's better this way. The government doesn't really interfere with my life here and so I don't bother with it. This seems to be true of almost everyone, and thankfully there aren't these weird social justice trends pervading society, so I find human interaction a lot more sane.

I was drunk at a club last night for the first time in a long time, and I was dancing with a Chinese girl who was into me, but apparently the foreigners in the room took issue with it and regarded it as creepy, so I told them to piss off and slept with the girl later. This is only ever an issue for foreigners, usually Americans. Everyone else minds their own business. There was another guy at the club when I mentioned the movie Grease who took it upon himself to explain how it was a terrible movie because it reinforced gender roles and how women are supposed to give up their lives for men. I kindly exited that conversation and left him alone because I don't have to concern myself with that shit here. There are plenty more sane people around, and it's only the foreigners who are ever concerned about stupid things like that. The sickness we see in American society is largely due to the government, and I the government itself is reinforced by the idea that we still have some modicum of freedom that we can defend by voting or politics, when really it's an illusion, and I find it better when people aren't under that ruse. It may not be ideal, but I think it's the best we can do for now. Vote with our feet by finding a place where we can mostly be left alone and only concern oneself with government when it interferes with you. Otherwise, stay out of it. It does absolutely no good to try to change things. I reckon if I was in America, I would eventually snap under the pressure of being hassled by cops for speeding tickets and being talked down to like they have more rights than I do. It's not a healthy environment. That's why I say forget about it and do something productive, don't reinforce a system that takes intelligent minds out of productive endeavors to be politicians, not to mention all the people who work campaigning rather than doing something that can actually help people or finding the cure for cancer, as the cliche goes. Anyway, sorry for the ramble, but that's my two cents.

P3ter_Griffin

09-25-2016, 05:44 PM

I've come to realize there is no real path to freedom. The forefathers, when they said the tree of liberty must be watered from time to time with the blood of tyrants, didn't just mean they had to keep killing people who tried to usurp power (at least to my understanding), but rather that tyranny would come for a time and nobody would even realize it and then it would get bad enough that there would be a revolution.

The only real path to freedom, as I've come to consider, is not to seek a revolution or figure out the best governmental formula, but rather agorism, or the idea that you should simply mind your own business and do your thing until somebody comes and tries to interfere with it. I'm in the nominally communist China and I've found that people don't really talk about politics over here, and it actually seems to work out quite a bit better for society. The police don't harass you much and there aren't that many regulations on business as far as zoning and safety regulations are concerned. Although there are many bad things about the Chinese government, including its gun policy, people at least aren't under the impression that they can somehow change things by voting, so they don't really concern themselves with politics. Instead, they're highly driven to succeed in business and learn skills that help them or others in life. Crazy as it seems, I think it's better this way. The government doesn't really interfere with my life here and so I don't bother with it. This seems to be true of almost everyone, and thankfully there aren't these weird social justice trends pervading society, so I find human interaction a lot more sane.

I was drunk at a club last night for the first time in a long time, and I was dancing with a Chinese girl who was into me, but apparently the foreigners in the room took issue with it and regarded it as creepy, so I told them to piss off and slept with the girl later. This is only ever an issue for foreigners, usually Americans. Everyone else minds their own business. There was another guy at the club when I mentioned the movie Grease who took it upon himself to explain how it was a terrible movie because it reinforced gender roles and how women are supposed to give up their lives for men. I kindly exited that conversation and left him alone because I don't have to concern myself with that shit here. There are plenty more sane people around, and it's only the foreigners who are ever concerned about stupid things like that. The sickness we see in American society is largely due to the government, and I the government itself is reinforced by the idea that we still have some modicum of freedom that we can defend by voting or politics, when really it's an illusion, and I find it better when people aren't under that ruse. It may not be ideal, but I think it's the best we can do for now. Vote with our feet by finding a place where we can mostly be left alone and only concern oneself with government when it interferes with you. Otherwise, stay out of it. It does absolutely no good to try to change things. I reckon if I was in America, I would eventually snap under the pressure of being hassled by cops for speeding tickets and being talked down to like they have more rights than I do. It's not a healthy environment. That's why I say forget about it and do something productive, don't reinforce a system that takes intelligent minds out of productive endeavors to be politicians, not to mention all the people who work campaigning rather than doing something that can actually help people or finding the cure for cancer, as the cliche goes. Anyway, sorry for the ramble, but that's my two cents.

I can appreciate this. Maybe in China you can get away with a bit more without the government noticing, and in rural America too. However if I just started doing with my property what I wish, and ignored the state, it would not be long before the inspection department would show up. And they'd tell me to take it down. And if I refused it would be the police department that showed up. And if I refused to go with them they'd forcibly take me either to jail or the morgue.

I think for agorsim to be practicable you need a certain level of freedom. For instance, if the state locked everyone in a cell, ignoring the state wouldn't do you much good.

And, not that this needs to motivate everyone, but what about how the government is treating other people? I could probably get along just fine as it is and jump through their hoops and have a happy and successful life, but I am also concerned about the folks on the receiving end of the bombs our state likes to drop. It may be the case that there is nothing that can be done about that but I need to figure that out for fact first and then adjust accordingly. I personally think there are better ways to 'adjust' then getting Irwin Schiffed.

P3ter_Griffin

09-25-2016, 05:50 PM

That is a valid assumption. My answer to that is that these so-called "leaders" have no authority beyond the management of the military. I would add that any man in the land would be authorized to take whatever measures were necessary to prevent such things from happening. This is precisely why I wrote that sufficient numbers would be trained in the arts of defense and well armed such that any attempt to violate the rights of the people could and would be stopped dead in its tracks without hesitation, equivocation, or reticence.

It seems you are getting stuck on a detail without keeping in mind the broader circumstance. As I wrote in the OP, freedom and stupidity cannot coexist for very long. Therefore, a free land must by definition be one of clued-in people, both in terms of intelligence, smarts, and attitude. With this condition, we could not preserve a free land. Look around you and it is clear that what I say is true.

I think the only logical conclusion this can lead to is 'direct control'. Relying on voting or hereditary rule can provide no guarantees.

But that makes sense. Because I think what we are advocating for is a private defense agency. Only difference- from my perspective- is that I generally think a pda would be motivated by profits whereas the motivation for this I think would be 'providing the service'.

osan

09-25-2016, 06:02 PM

I've come to realize there is no real path to freedom. The forefathers, when they said the tree of liberty must be watered from time to time with the blood of tyrants, didn't just mean they had to keep killing people who tried to usurp power (at least to my understanding), but rather that tyranny would come for a time and nobody would even realize it and then it would get bad enough that there would be a revolution.

The only real path to freedom, as I've come to consider, is not to seek a revolution or figure out the best governmental formula, but rather agorism, or the idea that you should simply mind your own business and do your thing until somebody comes and tries to interfere with it. I'm in the nominally communist China and I've found that people don't really talk about politics over here, and it actually seems to work out quite a bit better for society. The police don't harass you much and there aren't that many regulations on business as far as zoning and safety regulations are concerned. Although there are many bad things about the Chinese government, including its gun policy, people at least aren't under the impression that they can somehow change things by voting, so they don't really concern themselves with politics. Instead, they're highly driven to succeed in business and learn skills that help them or others in life. Crazy as it seems, I think it's better this way. The government doesn't really interfere with my life here and so I don't bother with it. This seems to be true of almost everyone, and thankfully there aren't these weird social justice trends pervading society, so I find human interaction a lot more sane.

I cannot disagree that America is now a very sick place. China has not gone there, yet. It may never go there, but their government has plenty of room for improvement. But if the Chinese are content with what they have, I am certainly OK with it.

I was drunk at a club last night for the first time in a long time, and I was dancing with a Chinese girl who was into me, but apparently the foreigners in the room took issue with it and regarded it as creepy, so I told them to piss off and slept with the girl later. This is only ever an issue for foreigners, usually Americans. Everyone else minds their own business. There was another guy at the club when I mentioned the movie Grease who took it upon himself to explain how it was a terrible movie because it reinforced gender roles and how women are supposed to give up their lives for men. I kindly exited that conversation and left him alone because I don't have to concern myself with that shit here. There are plenty more sane people around, and it's only the foreigners who are ever concerned about stupid things like that. The sickness we see in American society is largely due to the government, and I the government itself is reinforced by the idea that we still have some modicum of freedom that we can defend by voting or politics, when really it's an illusion, and I find it better when people aren't under that ruse. It may not be ideal, but I think it's the best we can do for now. Vote with our feet by finding a place where we can mostly be left alone and only concern oneself with government when it interferes with you. Otherwise, stay out of it. It does absolutely no good to try to change things. I reckon if I was in America, I would eventually snap under the pressure of being hassled by cops for speeding tickets and being talked down to like they have more rights than I do. It's not a healthy environment. That's why I say forget about it and do something productive, don't reinforce a system that takes intelligent minds out of productive endeavors to be politicians, not to mention all the people who work campaigning rather than doing something that can actually help people or finding the cure for cancer, as the cliche goes. Anyway, sorry for the ramble, but that's my two cents.

Politics is the #1 industry in America. It is a sickening thought.

PaulConventionWV

09-26-2016, 04:20 AM

I can appreciate this. Maybe in China you can get away with a bit more without the government noticing, and in rural America too. However if I just started doing with my property what I wish, and ignored the state, it would not be long before the inspection department would show up. And they'd tell me to take it down. And if I refused it would be the police department that showed up. And if I refused to go with them they'd forcibly take me either to jail or the morgue.

I think for agorsim to be practicable you need a certain level of freedom. For instance, if the state locked everyone in a cell, ignoring the state wouldn't do you much good.

And, not that this needs to motivate everyone, but what about how the government is treating other people? I could probably get along just fine as it is and jump through their hoops and have a happy and successful life, but I am also concerned about the folks on the receiving end of the bombs our state likes to drop. It may be the case that there is nothing that can be done about that but I need to figure that out for fact first and then adjust accordingly. I personally think there are better ways to 'adjust' then getting Irwin Schiffed.

Yeah. Nobody can really make those decisions for you. It's one of the most notoriously complicated issues in history. I chose to leave the country, others may wish to start a revolution or simply live an agorist lifestyle or just be a sucker and play the system while ignoring the vast injustices, which I don't recommend. I wholly agree, however, that America is not one of the best places for an agorist lifestyle, not even close. I've considered South America and a few other places. I hear society as a whole is pretty happy in some of those countries, like Colombia, but I've never been there so I don't really know. It seems most of the developed countries are out of the question as far as freedom is concerned, but China's pretty close to a developed country, and you don't even have to really interact with its bad parts if you stay in the big cities so it's not hard to live as if it is a fully developed country. You just have to get used to the local customs, and some of them are a bit hard to swallow, like the work environment, which I could go into more detail about but it's kind of long so I'll wait and see if anyone's interested.

The point is, find a place that suits you or fight if you really want freedom. Passively accepting it might work out in your favor, but for the obvious reasons it wouldn't be the noble thing to do, and besides, why risk it? The system might chew you up and spit you out, even if you try to merge with it. Everyone's situation is different, which is what makes it so hard to start any kind of revolution, and this particular system has the unique advantage of being inundated with mass media and a ***** belief in freedom that really doesn't stand up to scrutiny but is reinforced by the constant barrage of propaganda from the media that allows us to believe that what we have now is still anything like what the founding fathers gave us and that we can actually do something about it. To me, that's the worst part. Before we can do anything, we need to get rid of this false notion that we can change things through entirely passive means like voting. We need to stop using the system to change the system.

PaulConventionWV

09-26-2016, 04:23 AM

I cannot disagree that America is now a very sick place. China has not gone there, yet. It may never go there, but their government has plenty of room for improvement. But if the Chinese are content with what they have, I am certainly OK with it.

Politics is the #1 industry in America. It is a sickening thought.

I really appreciate that thoughtful response! Most people reject the notion that China could be good in any way, shape, or form based on knee-jerk reactions to the ideas they've been fed about it being one of the worst, most oppressive places on earth, along with the China-US competitive mentality that has been widespread lately.

Natural Citizen

09-26-2016, 06:53 AM

I really appreciate that thoughtful response! Most people reject the notion that China could be good in any way, shape, or form based on knee-jerk reactions to the ideas they've been fed about it being one of the worst, most oppressive places on earth, along with the China-US competitive mentality that has been widespread lately.

Mm. That's right, you're still over there. You should start a thread some place and tell us how it's been for you over there. Like every day stuff. First hand cultural and governmental observations and experiences and whatnot. Something that isn't mainstream western fodder.

osan

09-26-2016, 07:26 AM

I really appreciate that thoughtful response! Most people reject the notion that China could be good in any way, shape, or form based on knee-jerk reactions to the ideas they've been fed about it being one of the worst, most oppressive places on earth, along with the China-US competitive mentality that has been widespread lately.

I return to a previous point I have made more than once. Much of the rest of the world appears to be less oppressed than the USA in the details. Europe is similar to China in this respect in that police don't seem to as overtly oppressive because they do not outwardly behave as American police do. Just as you noted, cops from many other lands do not pick nits with their citizens. Police are perhaps the best example of this phenomenon to which I will now refer.

We see it and to my eyes it is pretty obvious. The question that stands salient is "why"? Why is it like this? Why is it that the purportedly freest nation on the planet is the one where police are the most militaristically trained (maybe not as much so as some backwater stink holes, but let us not count those, but confine ourselves to "civilized" nations) and strident in their enforcement policies and practices?

Why is it that totalitarian shit dumpers like the Chinese government appear to be less maniacally grasping at the reins of control than do the vermin now running the circus in America?

The answer is pretty simple, if subtle in point of operational facts. The reason is because China, Europe, and most of what is left has had mostly full control over their populations now for decades, if not centuries or more. The Chinese, and Europeans have had the tyrant's boot on their necks for so long that they are now well-bred to compliance, no matter how outrageous the conditions set upon them by their masters. America has yet to produce a Stalin or Mao (note "yet" - I put nothing past human beings). There is a reason for that: the American mentality of rebellion. God knows America is now gravely ill in terms of the average man's world view. The "ugly American" has been long cultivated, whether intentionally or by pure coincidence is almost irrelevant at this point, through the agency of institutions such as Hollywood and accepted by the American desire for self-aggrandizement and the outrageous, the latter being that part of the American spirit of adventurousness gone somehow morbid.

If we accept the assumption that there is indeed a cadre of people whom we may tag as "globalists", seeking one-world government for whatever reasons fair or foul, then everything we see happening in America suddenly comes sharply into discernible sense. The one and single thing that a one-world governmental institution would require in order to acquire and maintain its single-point, globally universal authority is world-wide compliance by those over whom they seek to lord. This is an absolute requirement. Several others follow from this, but I will not go into that here.

The rest of the meaningful populations of the earth have been reeled in, some millennia ago, while others only comparatively recently. The important thing, however, is that they are compliant to the demands placed upon them by "government". The only significant population that remains non-compliant to a degree wholly unfitting with the demands of global dominance is America. This is manifest in the lingering American proclivity for saying, "no, fuck YOU, I will not comply".

Far and away more significantly, it is manifest in the protections of the Second Amendment. We are not only armed, but very much well so to the point we would give any hostile military force grave fits were it to make an unwanted attempt upon American soil. This, IMO, is the single key point that has driven the cultivation of stupidity in this land for at least the past 50 years, if I am to wax less conspiratorial in my tone.

And to the question of conspiracy, let me be clear: I acknowledge that my POV could be mistaken in part or even in whole, but my training and experience in viewing things as statistical gestalts strongly suggests otherwise. I do not for a moment believe it likely that the block of broad-brush trends that have come into play in America during this time is the product of pure coincidence. There were simply too many countervailing factors that, had America been in fact a free-market land, would have wiped those trends out in their embryonic stages.

But that didn't happen. We can look back 40 years and readily see that the germ of trends that had people saying "no, fuck you" managed to survive, not because the free markets nurtured them to the full maturity we see today, but because an invisible hand (apologies) did so in spite of national rejection by the generations of those in their majority. The clear goal there was to keep the dying fetus of an idea alive long enough for it to take root in the generation currently in its minority such that by the time their majority was reached, at the very least they would be tolerant of it and the trends to which it would give rise. That tolerance would leave the doors wide open for the next generation who, if they did not embrace it, would at least accept it as "OK". The generation after that, naturally, would be normalized to it to the extent that the notion of the trend in question would have at least a 50-50 chance of catching on and being embraced and eventually demanded. This is the basic method by which America has been intentionally destroyed.

For those who doubt this, you need look no further for a prime example of it in full-bloom operations than the trend of so-called "trans-genderism". Just walk it backwards in your thoughts and you will see that the chain of progression is there, plain as day and loud as Sonny Rollins playing two saxophones at once. It started in the 50s with the homosexuals beginning to come out, to the chagrin of the older generations who, rightly or otherwise rejected the normalization of the homosexual. From that point on, we have seen the complicity of the courts, Hollywood, Congress, and every step of government right down to the town dog-catcher, slowly get on board with tolerance. But it didn't end there, where it should have - viewing homosexuality as "abnormal" - something one certainly would not want for their children but which one accepts and tolerates in others as an unfortunate and non-reversible condition in some of us. During the course of the rightful struggle of the chromosexuals for tolerance, there came by whatever virtue a quantum shift in the mindset of those people from one seeking tolerance to that demanding acceptance, at first, then embrasure, and now finally today, our accolades and praise.

It takes no rocket surgery to see this progression.

The same cancerous process of progression can be witnessed on so many fronts that only a maniacal fool suffering from a potentially terminal case of DOG (Denial Of Gravity) syndrome could claim it to be pure coincidence. Such an assertion is simply not sound when looked with statistical eyes turned upon a multivariate system as complex as that of the American population, most particularly when taking into account the strongly homogenous nature of the white Euro-Christian culture that had established itself strongly over the course of 150+ years, essentially unchallenged.

When one brings all the factors together, it becomes clear that this nation has been under an assault of sorts of a very decidedly non-random nature. No nominally intelligent, rational, and properly educated adult can look at the details and the totality of the events that brought America to its currently deplorable state and say that it was all just a big miserable (or happy if you are a progressive) co-inki-dinky. There is far too much force directed away from a giant and vastly-powerful mean that had proven its long-term staying power for literally centuries to just up and die in the course of a paltry 4 to 5 decades. To accept that this was all coincidence makes absolutely zero sense until one abandons the assumption of organic origins of force and substitutes it with that of the deliberately contrived.

The end game here? Simple compliance. Render Americans so ignorant, so wanton, so envious, so angry, so weak, so defeated in spirit that they finally throw up their hands in surrender and, well... COMPLY.

Nothing else explains so perfectly all that to which we have borne our witness, and it explains with great perfection why Chinese cops appear to be less the dicks that are their American brethren: they don't have to be. Why? Because their ultimate bosses know they have sufficient control through the voluntary compliance of their people. It therefore behooves those of the inner circles of power to be wise rather than foolish and give their slaves enough leash to remain compliant, but not so much that they begin to run amok. This ain't rocket surgery, folks. It is a simple, if not always easy, balancing act that the wise tyrant undertakes to keep his serfs docile without letting them get any silly notions.

The same may be witnessed in Europe, though to a less adept degree because those governors have lost their ways. But Europe has cultural eyes different from those of the Chinese, with far less a history of oppression. Unlike with the typical Chinese, the germ of rebellion remains in the European, no matter how dormant and atrophied. That is why we see rioting in places like France and Greece when their governments threaten to pull back on the soma rations. The Chinese are longer and more thoroughly trained away from such outbursts. Note how rare a thing the Boxer Rebellion represents in China. So long as the Chinese central governing authorities do not step too terribly far from good tyrannical sense, their hegemony is all but guaRONteed. Less so in Europe, but still sufficiently so that under "normal" conditions the police are instructed to be properly civil.

Not so in America because the American spirit absolutely must be broken and reengineered to Theire specifications for compliance so that the important busyness of governing the globe can progress like the cancer that it is.

Note my italicization of words rooting in "progress". It is to bring to attention a revelation I have had about "progressives" - the realization that "progressivism" in fact refers very directly to the evolution of a cancerous social state of existence. I don't know if the progressives intended that in their choice of moniker, but it would not surprise me were it to be the case.

To recap, America stands in the way of global hegemony, if for no other reasons than that we are so well armed and by that virtue represent to the rest of the world the POTENTIAL for rebellion, not to mention that we, the people, are the actual authority here. This shaft of actinic, coherent light issuing from the depths of the eternal blackness that is the rest of the world MUST be stamped out or, as the globalization of the world via the internet and other technologies advances, the example to those swallowed up in the dark will remain and stand to give those otherwise hopeless people ideas the masters most definitely do not want them to acquire.

And so we, the people of the last ostensibly free nation on the planet, live under daily attack on so many fronts. We have been rendered largely a race of functional idiots. We have been rendered hopelessly lazy in many ways, fearful, timid, cravenly avaricious, devoid of basic sense, rationality, and fundamental reasoning skills. We now flee from responsibility, accountability, and regard for the rights of those around us, all protest to the contrary notwithstanding.

In short, a great plurality of Americans have been deeply corrupted and thereby rendered hopelessly lost. And yet, enough of the spirit of freedom and rebellion against tyranny remains such that the pressure must be maintained whereby the police are still a bunch of dangerously amok criminals who luxuriate in the mandates handed them to suppress their brethren in every minute detail, like bosses. And so it shall remain until such time as the last sparks have been snuffed out, we stand disarmed, and are driven into compliance by the hammer of the mighty State.

I have this feeling in my core of cores that America is now on a cusp. To which direction we teeter will be up to us, methinks, and will tell us that of which we are still made. My optimism there is not great, but it remains, however tentatively.

But let you not be fooled regarding the Chinese state of affairs. The ONLY reason you enjoy what appears to be less hassle from government is precisely because the spirit of rebellion and freedom are dead in that nation. You said it yourself: the people do not talk politics. Why? Because to do so in a voice other than that of the happy worker running hither thither with his little red book in hand is to invite disaster into one's life. If that is what you are going to do, then why bother flapping your gums at all? Better ye lay down and play quietly within the metes of the cage you were allotted by men with guns.

Do not mistake the arbitrary grant of deign from the large-fangèd master with a state of liberty. When that master deems you need dying, you die on demand. Or "reeducation". Or...

America is rapidly approaching that level of oppression, only less subtly so because of the need to eradicate. Only time will tell how it all shakes out.

PierzStyx

09-26-2016, 12:04 PM

I've never thought that Anarcho-Capitalism is realistic. Without a military another country could come right in and impose their government on anarchy land.

Do you imagine that the only means to self-defense is the State?

Tywysog Cymru

09-26-2016, 01:00 PM

Do you imagine that the only means to self-defense is the State?

Not on the individual level. But if a nation abolished government and was invaded by another nation, I don't see how anarchy land would be able to defeat an invading army.

PierzStyx

09-26-2016, 04:14 PM

Not on the individual level. But if a nation abolished government and was invaded by another nation, I don't see how anarchy land would be able to defeat an invading army.

Same way that the Russians defeated Napoleon. Or for that matter how a bunch of poor, ill-equipped terrorists have been kicking America's arse. Armies are only good at fighting other armies. When your militia refuse to fight like them they cannot handle asymmetrical warfare. And that si if they anarchists don't organize their own military.

PaulConventionWV

09-26-2016, 05:06 PM

I return to a previous point I have made more than once. Much of the rest of the world appears to be less oppressed than the USA in the details. Europe is similar to China in this respect in that police don't seem to as overtly oppressive because they do not outwardly behave as American police do. Just as you noted, cops from many other lands do not pick nits with their citizens. Police are perhaps the best example of this phenomenon to which I will now refer.

We see it and to my eyes it is pretty obvious. The question that stands salient is "why"? Why is it like this? Why is it that the purportedly freest nation on the planet is the one where police are the most militaristically trained (maybe not as much so as some backwater stink holes, but let us not count those, but confine ourselves to "civilized" nations) and strident in their enforcement policies and practices?

Why is it that totalitarian $#@! dumpers like the Chinese government appear to be less maniacally grasping at the reins of control than do the vermin now running the circus in America?

The answer is pretty simple, if subtle in point of operational facts. The reason is because China, Europe, and most of what is left has had mostly full control over their populations now for decades, if not centuries or more. The Chinese, and Europeans have had the tyrant's boot on their necks for so long that they are now well-bred to compliance, no matter how outrageous the conditions set upon them by their masters. America has yet to produce a Stalin or Mao (note "yet" - I put nothing past human beings). There is a reason for that: the American mentality of rebellion. God knows American is now gravely ill in terms of the average man's world view. The "ugly American" has been long cultivated, whether intentionally or by pure coincidence is almost irrelevant at this point, through the agency of institutions such as Hollywood and accepted by the American desire for self-aggrandizement and the outrageous, the latter being that part of the American spirit of adventurousness gone somehow morbid.

If we accept the assumption that there is indeed a cadre of people whom we may tag as "globalists", seeking one-world government for whatever reasons fair or foul, then everything we see happening in America suddenly comes sharply into discernible sense. The one and single thing that a one-world governmental institution would require in order to acquire and maintain its single-point, globally universal authority is world-wide compliance by those over whom they seek to lord. This is an absolute requirement. Several others follow from this, but I will not go into that here.

The rest of the meaningful populations of the earth have been reeled in. Some millennia ago, while others only comparatively recently. The important thing, however, is that they are compliant to the demands placed upon them by "government". The only significant population that remains non-compliant to a degree wholly unfitting with the demands of global dominance is America. This is manifest in the lingering American proclivity for saying, "no, $#@! YOU, I will not comply".

Far and away more significantly, it is manifest in the protections of the Second Amendment. We are not only armed, but very much well so to the point we would give any hostile military force grave fits were it to make an unwanted attempt upon American soil. This, IMO, is the single key point that has driven the cultivation of stupidity in this land for at least the past 50 years, if I am to wax less conspiratorial in my tone.

And to the question of conspiracy, let me be clear: I acknowledge that my POV could be mistaken in part or even in whole, but my training and experience in viewing things as statistical gestalts strongly suggests otherwise. I do not for a moment believe it likely that the block of broad-brush trends that have come into play in America during this time is the product of pure coincidence. There were simply too many countervailing factors that, had America been in fact a free-market land, would have wiped those trends out in their embryonic stages.

But that didn't happen. We can look back 40 years and readily see that the germ of trends that had people saying "no, $#@! you" managed to survive, not because the free markets nurtured them to the full maturity we see today, but because an invisible hand (apologies) did so in spite of national rejection by the generations of those in their majority. The clear goal there was to keep the dying fetus of an idea long enough for it to take root in the generation currently in its minority such that by the time their majority was reached, at the very least they would be tolerant of the idea and the trends to which it would give rise. That tolerance would leave the doors wide open for the next generation who, if they did not embrace it, would at least accept it as "OK". The generation after that, naturally, would be normalized to it to the extent that the notion of the trend in question would have at least a 50-50 chance of catching on and being embraced and eventually demanded.

For those who doubt this, you need look no further for a prime example of it in full-bloom operations than the trend of so-called "trans-genderism". Just walk it backwards in your thoughts and you will see that the chain of progression is there, plain as day and loud as Sonny Rollins playing two saxophones at once. It started in the 50s with the homosexuals beginning to come out, to the chagrin of the older generations who, rightly or otherwise rejected the normalization of the homosexual. From that point on, we have seen the complicity of the courts, Hollywood, Congress, and every step of government right down to the town dog-catcher, slowly get on board with tolerance. But it didn't end there, where it should have - viewing homosexuality as "abnormal" - something one certainly would not want for their children but which one accepts and tolerates in others as an unfortunate and non-reversible condition in some of us. During the course of the rightful struggle of the chromosexuals for tolerance, there came by whatever virtue a quantum shift in the mindset of those people from one seeking tolerance to that demanding acceptance, at first, then embrasure, and now finally today, our accolades and praise.

It takes no rocket surgery to see this progression.

The same cancerous process of progression can be witnessed on so many fronts that only a maniacal fool suffering from a potentially terminal case of DOG (Denial Of Gravity) syndrome could claim it to be pure coincidence. Such an assertion is simply not sound when looked with statistical eyes turned upon a multivariate system as complex as that of the American population, most particularly when taking into account the strongly homogenous nature of the white Euro-Christian culture that had established itself strongly over the course of 150+ years, essentially unchallenged.

When one brings all the factors together, it becomes clear that this nation has been under an assault of sorts of a very decidedly non-random nature. No nominally intelligent, rational, and properly educated adult can look at the details and the totality of the events that brought America to its currently deplorable state and say that it was all just a big miserable (or happy if you are a progressive) co-inki-dinky. There is far too much force directed away from a giant and vastly-powerful mean that had proven its long-term staying power for literally centuries to just up and die in the course of a paltry 4 to 5 decades. To accept that this was all coincidence makes absolutely zero sense until one abandons the assumption of organic origins of force and substitutes it with that of the deliberately contrived.

The end game here? Simple compliance. Render Americans so ignorant, so wanton, so envious, so angry, so weak, so defeated in spirit that they finally throw up their hands in surrender and, well... COMPLY.

Nothing else explains so perfectly all that to which we have borne our witness, and it explains with great perfection why Chinese cops appear to be less the dicks that are their American brethren: they don't have to be. Why? Because their ultimate bosses know they have sufficient control through the voluntary compliance of their people. It therefore behooves those of the inner circles of power to be wise rather than foolish and give their slaves enough leash to remain compliant, but not so much that they begin to run amok. This ain't rocket surgery, folks. It is a simple, if not always easy, balancing act that the wise tyrant undertakes to keep his serfs docile without letting them get any silly notions.

The same may be witnessed in Europe, though to a less adept degree as those governors have so very much lost their ways. But Europe has cultural eyes different from those of the Chinese, with far less a history of oppression. Unlike with the typical Chinese, the germ of rebellion remains in the European, no matter how dormant and atrophied. That is why we see rioting in places like France and Greece when their governments threaten to pull back on the soma rations. The Chinese are longer and more thoroughly trained away from such outbursts. Note how rare a thing the Boxer Rebellion represents there. So long as the Chinese central governing authorities do not step too terribly far from good tyrannical sense, their hegemony is all but guaRONteed. Less so in Europe, but still sufficiently so that under "normal" conditions the police are instructed to be properly civil.

Not so in America because the American spirit absolutely must be broken and reengineered to Theire specifications for compliance so that the important busyness of governing the globe can progress like the cancer that it is.

Note my italicization of words rooting in "progress". It is to bring to attention a revelation I have had about "progressives" - the realization that "progressivism" in fact refers very directly to the evolution of a cancerous social state of existence. I don't know if the progressives intended that in their choice of moniker, but it would not surprise me were it to be the case.

To recap, America stands in the way of global hegemony, if for no other reasons than that we are so well armed and by that virtue represent to the rest of the world the POTENTIAL for rebellion, not to mention that we, the people, are the actual authority here. This shaft of actinic, coherent light issuing from the depths of the eternal blackness that the rest of the world MUST be stamped out or, as the globalization of the world via the internet and other technologies advances, the example to those swallowed up in the dark will remain and stand to give those otherwise hopeless people ideas the masters most definitely do not want them to acquire.

And so we, the people of the last ostensibly free nation on the planet, live under daily attack on so many fronts. We have been rendered largely a race of functional idiots. We have been rendered hopelessly lazy in many ways, fearful, timid, cravenly avaricious, devoid of basic sense, rationality, and fundamental reasoning skills. We now flee from responsibility, accountability, and care for the rights of those around us, all protest to the contrary notwithstanding.

In short, a great plurality of Americans have been deeply corrupted and thereby rendered hopelessly lost. And yet, enough of the spirit of freedom and rebellion against tyranny remains such that the pressure must be maintained whereby the police are still a bunch of dangerously amok criminals who luxuriate in the mandates handed to them to suppress their brethren in every minute detail, like bosses. And so it shall remain until such time as the last sparks have been snuffed out, we stand disarmed, and are driven into compliance by the hammer of the mighty State.

I do, however, have this feeling in my core of cores that America is now on a cusp. To which direction we teeter will be up to us, methinks, and will tell us that of which we are still made. My optimism there is not great, but it remains, however tentatively.

But let you not be fooled regarding the Chinese state of affairs. The ONLY reason you enjoy what appears to be less hassle from government is precisely because the spirit of rebellion and freedom are dead in that nation. You said it yourself: the people do not talk politics. Why? Because to do so in a voice other than that of the happy worker running hither thither with his little red book in hand is to invite disaster into one's life. If that is what you are going to do, then why bother flapping your gums at all. Better ye lay down and play quietly within the metes of the cage you were allotted by men with guns.

Do not mistake the arbitrary grant of deign from the large-fangèd master with a state of liberty. When that master deems you need dying, you die on demand. Or "reeducation". Or...

America is rapidly approaching that level of oppression, only less subtly so because of the need to eradicate. Only time will tell how it all shakes out.

I agree. In fact, that was part of my point, that the people of other nations, particularly China, don't seem to have as many quarrels with their government because they've already been subdued for a long time. America's only not quite that way yet because it's a relatively new nation. Right now, it is quite a lot more outwardly oppressive than other nations, but part of my point is that, if tyranny yields such results and is inevitable, then maybe it's actually preferable to the blind patriotism and deep-seeded belief that we're "special" held almost exclusively by the US (and the UK to some lesser extent).

Tywysog Cymru

09-26-2016, 06:43 PM

Same way that the Russians defeated Napoleon. Or for that matter how a bunch of poor, ill-equipped terrorists have been kicking America's arse. Armies are only good at fighting other armies. When your militia refuse to fight like them they cannot handle asymmetrical warfare. And that si if they anarchists don't organize their own military.

In Russia Napoleon faced an organized army. Guerrilla warfare often works, but that's when large parts of your country have been occupied.

osan

09-26-2016, 09:35 PM

I agree. In fact, that was part of my point, that the people of other nations, particularly China, don't seem to have as many quarrels with their government because they've already been subdued for a long time. America's only not quite that way yet because it's a relatively new nation. Right now, it is quite a lot more outwardly oppressive than other nations, but part of my point is that, if tyranny yields such results and is inevitable, then maybe it's actually preferable to the blind patriotism and deep-seeded belief that we're "special" held almost exclusively by the US (and the UK to some lesser extent).

I understand your point, but cannot get on board with it. I carried a gun in NYC illegally for at least a decade precisely to spite those who told me I could not. Perhaps I am a fool, but given the things to which I have been witness, most in the form of history, but some up close and personal, I just cannot get myself to go along with the agenda of madmen and demons.

ETA and PS: that tunnel image on your facebook page looks like one in Philly.

PaulConventionWV

09-27-2016, 04:05 AM

Mm. That's right, you're still over there. You should start a thread some place and tell us how it's been for you over there. Like every day stuff. First hand cultural and governmental observations and experiences and whatnot. Something that isn't mainstream western fodder.

Good idea! I'll get around to that soon.

PaulConventionWV

09-27-2016, 04:07 AM

I understand your point, but cannot get on board with it. I carried a gun in NYC illegally for at least a decade precisely to spite those who told me I could not. Perhaps I am a fool, but given the things to which I have been witness, most in the form of history, but some up close and personal, I just cannot get myself to go along with the agenda of madmen and demons.

ETA and PS: that tunnel image on your facebook page looks like one in Philly.

No, it's in WV near my hometown.

And yeah, I can definitely understand why you wouldn't really be on board with accepting tyranny for the sake of peace. I'm not really either, but it's not my country here so I guess that means I don't have to worry about it.

nobody's_hero

09-27-2016, 07:00 AM

The problem libertarianism has is that ideals regarding individual sovereignty are only as good as the people who share that philosophy. --It's ironic. You need an overwhelming number of people who believe in the individual for individualism to thrive.

Otherwise, the collectivists just do away with you.

osan

09-27-2016, 09:21 AM

No, it's in WV near my hometown.

Looks just like a tunnel in Philly I've walked down. Black as pitch inside and creepy as all hell. :)

And yeah, I can definitely understand why you wouldn't really be on board with accepting tyranny for the sake of peace. I'm not really either, but it's not my country here so I guess that means I don't have to worry about it.

It would be potentially hazardous for you step beyond certain lines, in any event.

BTW, what are you doing there?

osan

09-27-2016, 09:39 AM

The problem libertarianism has is that ideals regarding individual sovereignty are only as good as the people who share that philosophy. --It's ironic. You need an overwhelming number of people who believe in the individual for individualism to thrive.

Otherwise, the collectivists just do away with you.

As I have mentioned here several times, the collectivist-authoritarians have EVERY advantage on their side, and because of this will likely win in the end. They hold all the... erm... "TRUMP" cards. Their positions rely upon all of the worst of human weaknesses, whereas ours relies on all the requirements of freedom.

It is the classic battle between entropy and order. Entropy always has the upper hand because order requires energy. Entropy asks nothing more than for one to relax and let go. Entropy does all the rest.

Think of the symmetry here between entropy and the progressive authoritarian-collectivist. Entropy represents the relentless march of all unaffected things toward EQUILIBRIUM, which is the march toward pure energy equality. That is to say, everything is literally the same in energy terms. This is precisely mirrored by the progressive, whose goal is the colorless, drab, and dreary sameness of all human condition. One of the great ironies lies in their endless whinging about "diversity" from the one side of their mouths, and their shrieks for "equality" on the other. Are they so stupid or psychotic that they cannot see the rankly ridiculous nature of their wholly self-contradictory position, or are they simply so wholly corrupted with this brand of pure evil that they don't give a tinker's damn?

Progressivism requires nothing more of a man than to let go of himself such that he naturally devolves into an inert, mentally bereft stooge. Freedom requires a man's strength of character and all the work and courage in the world.

The progressive's reward? Mere and idle existence where no effort need be expended by the beneficiary... at least not until the Master finally achieves the goal of total domination, inevitably leading said stooges to this: :eek:

The reward of freedom is itself - the pure exhilaration of flying and liberation from the burdens of trying to be your brother's political keeper.

PierzStyx

09-27-2016, 09:43 AM

In Russia Napoleon faced an organized army. Guerrilla warfare often works, but that's when large parts of your country have been occupied.

In Russia Napoleon faced an army that continually retreated before him, slashing and burning all their crops and poisoning their wells. The Russians never had to fight Napoleon, they just watched him starve. Don't collaborate, don't obey and you cannot lose.

Tywysog Cymru

09-27-2016, 12:17 PM

In Russia Napoleon faced an army that continually retreated before him, slashing and burning all their crops and poisoning their wells. The Russians never had to fight Napoleon, they just watched him starve. Don't collaborate, don't obey and you cannot lose.

The Russians actually did fight the French.

I'm going to present two scenarios:

First, let's imagine that after World War II, Western Germany, France, Britain, and the rest of Western Europe became anarchist. They would be overrun by the Red army within months. They wouldn't have the means to defend themselves against an organized and coordinated Soviet invasion. Sure, millions of people could buy rifles, but how many people can afford tanks, planes, and anti-aircraft weapons?

Second, let's imagine that America became anarchist. A foreign nation would have an extremely difficult time conquering the entire country, but they could easily take small parts of the country without any major repercussions. After all, why would someone in Florida feel the need to help a town in Maine from being subjugated.

osan

09-27-2016, 01:20 PM

In Russia Napoleon faced an army that continually retreated before him, slashing and burning all their crops and poisoning their wells. The Russians never had to fight Napoleon, they just watched him starve. Don't collaborate, don't obey and you cannot lose.

Napoleon didn't have helicopter gunships. Air power has been a game changer. One can only wonder how the other technologies might fare in other forms of retreat. I suppose we will not know until we try. :)

heavenlyboy34

09-27-2016, 01:35 PM

The Russians actually did fight the French.

I'm going to present two scenarios:

First, let's imagine that after World War II, Western Germany, France, Britain, and the rest of Western Europe became anarchist. They would be overrun by the Red army within months. They wouldn't have the means to defend themselves against an organized and coordinated Soviet invasion. Sure, millions of people could buy rifles, but how many people can afford tanks, planes, and anti-aircraft weapons?

Second, let's imagine that America became anarchist. A foreign nation would have an extremely difficult time conquering the entire country, but they could easily take small parts of the country without any major repercussions. After all, why would someone in Florida feel the need to help a town in Maine from being subjugated.

As far as I've been able to prove thus far, the Russian primarily sniped from the mountains. The Russian winter did the hardest damage to the Grand Armee. Pretty much the same thing happened to the Germans. Lesson to be learned-don't invade Russia in the winter. ;)

Tywysog Cymru

09-27-2016, 02:08 PM

As far as I've been able to prove thus far, the Russian primarily sniped from the mountains. The Russian winter did the hardest damage to the Grand Armee. Pretty much the same thing happened to the Germans. Lesson to be learned-don't invade Russia in the winter. ;)

While the winter was the main reason for Napoleon's loss, the Russians did stand and fight the French at least once at Borodino.

heavenlyboy34

09-27-2016, 02:19 PM

While the winter was the main reason for Napoleon's loss, the Russians did stand and fight the French at least once at Borodino.

*thumbsup* :) Indeed.

PierzStyx

09-27-2016, 05:19 PM

Napoleon didn't have helicopter gunships. Air power has been a game changer.

Tell that to the people kicking our ass in Afghanistan and Iraq with nothing but trucks and homemade IEDs. The only way you're going to be able to suppress a people in revolt without using actual human soldiers, which would then require an entire nation's worth of soldiers, will be when you invent combat ready AI. In other words, Terminators.

PierzStyx

09-27-2016, 05:23 PM

The Russians actually did fight the French.

I'm going to present two scenarios:

First, let's imagine that after World War II, Western Germany, France, Britain, and the rest of Western Europe became anarchist. They would be overrun by the Red army within months. They wouldn't have the means to defend themselves against an organized and coordinated Soviet invasion. Sure, millions of people could buy rifles, but how many people can afford tanks, planes, and anti-aircraft weapons?

Second, let's imagine that America became anarchist. A foreign nation would have an extremely difficult time conquering the entire country, but they could easily take small parts of the country without any major repercussions. After all, why would someone in Florida feel the need to help a town in Maine from being subjugated.

They fought one battle. But that wasn't what determined the conflict.

You don't even need guns to defeat the Red Army. You just need a people unwilling to comply. Noncompliance cripples empires. The point of an empire is to gain power and wealth. When the people refuse to be exploited and refuse to obey you gain neither of those, and the empire becomes a self-destructive sinkhole.

The funny part about your second scenario is the answer is staring you in the face. People from all nations, races, and languages have been coming together for over a decade to fight the American military in the Middle East. And they've been pretty successful too. Whether you call them "terrorists" or "freedom fighters" the ties that bind a people together go beyond nationality, ethnicity, or even state.

osan

09-27-2016, 06:30 PM

Tell that to the people kicking our ass in Afghanistan and Iraq with nothing but trucks and homemade IEDs. The only way you're going to be able to suppress a people in revolt without using actual human soldiers, which would then require an entire nation's worth of soldiers, will be when you invent combat ready AI. In other words, Terminators.

I will not say that Afghanistan would be a cake walk by any means, but has we gone in there with the intention of waging actual war, we would have wiped them out. This was the same idiocy in which we engaged in Viet Nam, only worse. The rules of engagement are so dangerously backwards that it is no wonder that we are having a time of things.

If it is war you seek to prosecute, then so that and do not pussyfoot around. You kill everything that moves without hesitation or mercy. Otherwise you are jerking off with other people's lives and that practice occupies no more sound a moral position than going in with the full intention of winning quickly and utterly.

Reminds me of the bathtub scene in one of Eastwood's spaghetti westerns where Eli Wallach's character shoots the bad guy from under the water. Afterward he says, "if you're gonna shoot, shoot. Don't talk." It is pretty much the same deal with warring.

PS: And as for AI, if you knew what I knew about that particular subject, you would shit your pants, lock yourself in your house and never come out again. I'm serious. I wish I could tell what I worked on, but am in no humor to go to prison for the rest of my life. But I will tell you that 15 years ago the technology was both fascinating and utterly terrifying. I can only imagine where it must stand today.

phill4paul

09-27-2016, 07:17 PM

I will not say that Afghanistan would be a cake walk by any means, but has we gone in there with the intention of waging actual war, we would have wiped them out. This was the same idiocy in which we engaged in Viet Nam, only worse. The rules of engagement are so dangerously backwards that it is no wonder that we are having a time of things.

If it is war you seek to prosecute, then so that and do not pussyfoot around. You kill everything that moves without hesitation or mercy. Otherwise you are jerking off with other people's lives and that practice occupies no more sound a moral position than going in with the full intention of winning quickly and utterly.

Reminds me of the bathtub scene in one of Eastwood's spaghetti westerns where Eli Wallach's character shoots the bad guy from under the water. Afterward he says, "if you're gonna shoot, shoot. Don't talk." It is pretty much the same deal with warring.

PS: And as for AI, if you knew what I knew about that particular subject, you would shit your pants, lock yourself in your house and never come out again. I'm serious. I wish I could tell what I worked on, but am in no humor to go to prison for the rest of my life. But I will tell you that 15 years ago the technology was both fascinating and utterly terrifying. I can only imagine where it must stand today.

Wiped who out? When you kill everything that moves without hesitation or mercy you create ten more adversaries. You may as well just drop a nuke and save blood and treasure. Air power is so 3GW. Catch up ya old fart. We are moving into 5GW. As far as A.I., I can only say, at risk of sounding like a sci-fi geek, "Don’t be too proud of this technological terror you’ve constructed." History is replete with "defense, offense, defense, offense." Adapt, improvise and overcome. Over and over.

osan

09-27-2016, 07:58 PM

When you kill everything that moves without hesitation or mercy you create ten more adversaries.

This is not always the case. When potential adversaries know they will be safe if they leave you alone, they will usually leave you alone, particularly when they know you will go balls to the walls if you decide to pick a fight.

I maintain that if you are going to war, then war. Otherwise, stay home.

You may as well just drop a nuke and save blood and treasure.

I think not because the use of nukes signals a level of aggression that stands to put the adversary on a similar "we got nuthin' to lose" footing, as well as his neighbors. But when you adopt a very similar posture as the central pillar of your defense strategy, you give those potential enemies much pause because they know that if they pick a fight with you, you are going hurt them with single-minded savagery that will appall them endlessly and cause them to curse the day their parents met.

As far as A.I., I can only say, at risk of sounding like a sci-fi geek, "Don’t be too proud of this technological terror you’ve constructed." History is replete with "defense, offense, defense, offense." Adapt, improvise and overcome. Over and over.

I didn't construct it. I tested it.

heavenlyboy34

09-27-2016, 08:12 PM

This is not always the case. When potential adversaries know they will be safe if they leave you alone, they will usually leave you alone, particularly when they know you will go balls to the walls if you decide to pick a fight.

Thing is, "terror" is a tactic, not an adversary. You can turn the 'Stan into glass and there will still arise "terrorists". Hell, the CIA created and/or funded quite a lot of them. (one man's "terrorist" is another man's "Freedom Fighter", dontcha know.)

phill4paul

09-27-2016, 08:15 PM

This is not always the case. When potential adversaries know they will be safe if they leave you alone, they will usually leave you alone, particularly when they know you will go balls to the walls if you decide to pick a fight.

I maintain that if you are going to war, then war. Otherwise, stay home.

I think not because the use of nukes signals a level of aggression that stands to put the adversary on a similar "we got nuthin' to lose" footing, as well as his neighbors. But when you adopt a very similar posture as the central pillar of your defense strategy, you give those potential enemies much pause because they know that if they pick a fight with you, you are going hurt them with single-minded savagery that will appall them endlessly and cause them to curse the day their parents met.

I didn't construct it. I tested it.

Potential adversaries don't care to remain safe when you are shitting in their back yard. Afghani's weren't "adversaries." They were caught up in a war of aggression by the United States. Bin Laden could have been "had" at the get go. That wasn't the way the cards were meant to be played.

You're the one calling for "if you are going to war, then war." A small nuke at Tora Bora would have been waging war. No? And ended a decades old battle pretty damn quick.

Or maybe we shouldn't have been sticking our prick in the middle-east so long that it came to this. Best to just stay home.

osan

09-27-2016, 08:59 PM

Potential adversaries don't care to remain safe when you are shitting in their back yard.

Valid point, but wholly orthogonal to that of how to wage war. I completely agree with you on this, but it is a different issue completely that speaks to foreign policy.

I must apologize for having expressed myself insufficiently. My POV on waging war is based on the assumption that you are rational and are not adventuring as Theye currently bemuse themselves. The moment you depart from the sound practices of proper neighborliness as America has since at least 9/11/01, almost anything is possible.

The only valid reason for marching our army into Afghanistan was as an act of self defense against their aggression. In that case, the way forward is with clear, positive military objectives and the will to break your enemy, whatever it takes. We did not do that. We entered with no apparent provocation that I can recall. Once in, we screwed our own men with insane rules of engagement (ROEs), prosecuted campaigns without proper resolve, and then decided to dabble in nation-building. Every political choice we made was in error.

Afghani's weren't "adversaries." They were caught up in a war of aggression by the United States. Bin Laden could have been "had" at the get go. That wasn't the way the cards were meant to be played.

No argument from me.

You're the one calling for "if you are going to war, then war." A small nuke at Tora Bora would have been waging war. No? And ended a decades old battle pretty damn quick.

War on the assumption of justness. We all know how just that shenanigan was. The nuke deal cuts no muster because the perceived nature of such things tends to get lots of people very uptight. Once the first bomb went off, chances are that it's all bets off. We might call nukes a "special case".

Or maybe we shouldn't have been sticking our prick in the middle-east so long that it came to this. Best to just stay home.

That goes without saying. Even so, once committed, we should have done the job pursuant to a very clear set of military goals, executed with the intention of winning, and then went home. But no. And so here we are.

phill4paul

09-27-2016, 09:23 PM

Valid point, but wholly orthogonal to that of how to wage war. I completely agree with you on this, but it is a different issue completely that speaks to foreign policy.

I must apologize for having expressed myself insufficiently. My POV on waging war is based on the assumption that you are rational and are not adventuring as Theye currently bemuse themselves. The moment you depart from the sound practices of proper neighborliness as America has since at least 9/11/01, almost anything is possible.

The only valid reason for marching our army into Afghanistan was as an act of self defense against their aggression. In that case, the way forward is with clear, positive military objectives and the will to break your enemy, whatever it takes. We did not do that. We entered with no apparent provocation that I can recall. Once in, we screwed our own men with insane rules of engagement (ROEs), prosecuted campaigns without proper resolve, and then decided to dabble in nation-building. Every political choice we made was in error.

.

No argument from me.

War on the assumption of justness. We all know how just that shenanigan was. The nuke deal cuts no muster because the perceived nature of such things tends to get lots of people very uptight. Once the first bomb went off, chances are that it's all bets off. We might call nukes a "special case".

That goes without saying. Even so, once committed, we should have done the job pursuant to a very clear set of military goals, executed with the intention of winning, and then went home. But no. And so here we are.

3GW. It's not done that way anymore. Individual actors are perpetrating aggression against the U.S. from within sovereign states. You cannot declare war against the peoples of a sovereign state because there are actors within it. If you do what you get is perpetual war. Where we are at now. To avoid this you issue Letters of Reprisal. And some ex-SOB collects a $10 million, or even a $100 million dollar payday, instead of spending billions and thousands in blood and treasure.

heavenlyboy34

09-27-2016, 10:05 PM

3GW. It's not done that way anymore. Individual actors are perpetrating aggression against the U.S. from within sovereign states. You cannot declare war against the peoples of a sovereign state because there are actors within it. If you do what you get is perpetual war. Where we are at now. To avoid this you issue Letters of Reprisal. And some ex-SOB collects a $10 million, or even a $100 million dollar payday, instead of spending billions and thousands in blood and treasure.

You must spread some Reputation around before giving it to phill4paul again.
YOU ARE MAKING TOO MUCH LOGICAL SENSE FOR THE WEBBERNETS!!! ;) :D ~hugs~

HVACTech

09-27-2016, 10:32 PM

I've never thought that Anarcho-Capitalism is realistic. Without a military another country could come right in and impose their government on anarchy land.

you are in good company.

that is the very same conclusion that our founders came to. :cool:

HVACTech

09-27-2016, 10:36 PM

The only path to freedom is through contract consented to by all parties.

how often should this task be performed?

HVACTech

09-27-2016, 10:39 PM

Do you imagine that the only means to self-defense is the State?

against another country. the answer is obvious.

HVACTech

09-27-2016, 10:54 PM

I will not say that Afghanistan would be a cake walk by any means, but has we gone in there with the intention of waging actual war, we would have wiped them out. This was the same idiocy in which we engaged in Viet Nam, only worse. The rules of engagement are so dangerously backwards that it is no wonder that we are having a time of things.

If it is war you seek to prosecute, then so that and do not pussyfoot around. You kill everything that moves without hesitation or mercy. Otherwise you are jerking off with other people's lives and that practice occupies no more sound a moral position than going in with the full intention of winning quickly and utterly.

Reminds me of the bathtub scene in one of Eastwood's spaghetti westerns where Eli Wallach's character shoots the bad guy from under the water. Afterward he says, "if you're gonna shoot, shoot. Don't talk." It is pretty much the same deal with warring.

PS: And as for AI, if you knew what I knew about that particular subject, you would $#@! your pants, lock yourself in your house and never come out again. I'm serious. I wish I could tell what I worked on, but am in no humor to go to prison for the rest of my life. But I will tell you that 15 years ago the technology was both fascinating and utterly terrifying. I can only imagine where it must stand today.

Sir. none of that has anything to do with MinArchy. A truly limited government. simply does not have the power to wage war. :)

if you continue to hijack the OP's thread... I will have to report you.
to the "territorial magistrates". :p

Individual actors are perpetrating aggression against the U.S. from within sovereign states.

On their own initiative? What of when they are "handled" by others - directed to do what they do?

And how does one define "sovereign state" in this case? If a large corporate actor were directing "individual" acts of "terrorism" against targets in the United States and that actor had effective control over the government whence it was issuing its commands, would that not qualify as a "sovereign state"? If the government of that state were unable to act against the corporate agent for whatever reason, would it be your position that we cannot act against them?

You cannot declare war against the peoples of a sovereign state because there are actors within it.

Most certainly you can. Whether it is advisable to do so is another question entirely.

Where does one draw the line between "the peoples" and the associated sovereign state? This problem of partitioning is the same that has existed for thousands of years. We are not the first to slaughter innocents, and we will not be the last. There are so many fundamental issues here.

For example, consider Germany ca. 1933. It can be plausibly argued that our decimation of the German people with the bombings of Hamburg and Dresden was warranted because the German people brought it on themselves, either through their failure to fight Hitler, or their active joining with him. Either way, they were all part of enabling his rise to power. But once again, where does one draw the line between responsibility to act and innocence? Are ALL the German people guilty of not having put Hitler down? What about the infants and toddlers? Did they deserve death in air raids?

Like all modern tyrants, Hitler hid his minions among the masses, using them as shields - whether intentionally or otherwise. When push came to shoot, the only way to dig out the NAZIs from the flesh of Germany was by the means employed, which resulted in millions of innocent people being killed. And yet, had those opposed to him not done what they did for the sake of preserving innocence, who knows what the world would look like today.

Why didn't we do the same with the Soviets? How much death and destruction by their hands would have been averted if we'd NOT handed them the plans to nuclear weapons on a silver platter and vaporized all their military facilities and their 15 largest cities, to boot? Were those Soviets innocent who failed to fight Lenin and Stalin?

Perhaps you gather the nature of war in general? It is a CRIME. What justification is there for it being waged on national and global bases? Innocents ALWAYS die at the hands of the warring parties. Other than completely ceasing to war, there is nothing any of us can do to stop these "states" from committing these atrocities. And most of the time vast pluralities of the national population are all on board with their "governments" going to bomb the shit out of someone.

Look at 9/11. Right afterward Americans were largely ready to go kill sand fleas. It was the same story after Pearl Harbor - yeah baby... go kill them Japs! So we cannot even blame only the governments for what transpires.

War is in the blood. It is part of what humans have become since the age of Empire. The Empire mind is a war-monger... at least so long as the warring is carried out far away.

Only a quantum alteration in the mind of the average man is going to put a stop to this insanity. Do you see that coming down the pike any time soon?

If you do what you get is perpetual war.

And do you imagine that Theye are not aware of this?

To avoid this you issue Letters of Reprisal.

Yes yes, but you are not taking Theire nature and objectives into account. Your subtext is one that presumes the capacity and intent to govern properly. That is most clearly not in evidence, whereas the contrariwise fact very much is. We have demons running our lives. We do nothing effective against them in the face of our ability to do so much more. Do we not deserve the abuses we suffer?

Tywysog Cymru

09-28-2016, 10:28 AM

You don't even need guns to defeat the Red Army. You just need a people unwilling to comply. Noncompliance cripples empires. The point of an empire is to gain power and wealth. When the people refuse to be exploited and refuse to obey you gain neither of those, and the empire becomes a self-destructive sinkhole.

If you refuse to obey you get shot or sent to the gulag. And there would certainly be a large number of people who would comply.

The funny part about your second scenario is the answer is staring you in the face. People from all nations, races, and languages have been coming together for over a decade to fight the American military in the Middle East. And they've been pretty successful too. Whether you call them "terrorists" or "freedom fighters" the ties that bind a people together go beyond nationality, ethnicity, or even state.

If the USA stopped existing, I don't think very many people would risk their lives to keep Canada from taking part of Maine or Mexico from taking part of Arizona. My rifle and shotgun are no match for a modern army.

PaulConventionWV

09-29-2016, 08:17 AM

Looks just like a tunnel in Philly I've walked down. Black as pitch inside and creepy as all hell. :)

It would be potentially hazardous for you step beyond certain lines, in any event.

BTW, what are you doing there?

Teaching English. Things are going pretty well right now, and if they keep going this way, I may eventually choose to make an enterprise out of it. I definitely feel the opportunity is there much more than I ever did in the states. I've already done some freelance work and have gained some notoriety for my teaching ability while making a significant and marked impact that will eventually help me gain even more notoriety.

In fact, while this may just be a perception issue, I feel that I've made the biggest impact while I'm not at my actual day job, and I definitely feel like that's where the most meaningful work occurs for me. The market I'm currently is wildly inefficient, but it pays well enough. However, I still feel I make the most meaningful difference outside of work and I'm just looking for the opportunity to make that part of what I do instead of just a side venture.

I've already met hundreds of people through a hiking group called Outdoor English Corner started by a good friend of mine with which I am now heavily involved. Just today I got an offer from someone to tutor a lawyer for his spoken English test as well as a few other offers and I've already successfully helped a 16 year old boy to far surpass his parents' expectations on the TOEFL test, helping to prepare him for studying in the US. Just a couple of examples of the way my life has been made more meaningful and I feel like I've made a huge difference already, far more than I could've hoped for in the US.

osan

09-29-2016, 11:19 AM

Teaching English. Things are going pretty well right now, and if they keep going this way, I may eventually choose to make an enterprise out of it. I definitely feel the opportunity is there much more than I ever did in the states. I've already done some freelance work and have gained some notoriety for my teaching ability while making a significant and marked impact that will eventually help me gain even more notoriety.

In fact, while this may just be a perception issue, I feel that I've made the biggest impact while I'm not at my actual day job, and I definitely feel like that's where the most meaningful work occurs for me. The market I'm currently is wildly inefficient, but it pays well enough. However, I still feel I make the most meaningful difference outside of work and I'm just looking for the opportunity to make that part of what I do instead of just a side venture.

I've already met hundreds of people through a hiking group called Outdoor English Corner started by a good friend of mine with which I am now heavily involved. Just today I got an offer from someone to tutor a lawyer for his spoken English test as well as a few other offers and I've already successfully helped a 16 year old boy to far surpass his parents' expectations on the TOEFL test, helping to prepare him for studying in the US. Just a couple of examples of the way my life has been made more meaningful and I feel like I've made a huge difference already, far more than I could've hoped for in the US.

Good. All the best.

r3volution 3.0

09-30-2016, 07:43 PM

Regarding guerilla warfare,

Throughout history, most peoples have accepted conquest; there have been relatively few instances of large-scale guerilla resistance.

This is because of its enormous costs, which usually outweigh the costs of conquest.

Option A. Pay 5% tax to the conqueror.

Option B. Suffer through years of war, losing most of your property and risking death, in order to (maybe) avoid paying 5% tax to the conqueror.

A society's wealth is an especially important factor in determine whether it will accept conquest or choose guerilla resistance. The richer a society, the more it has to lose through resistance AND the more attractive a target it is to the conqueror (i.e. the more resources he's willing to expend to conquer it). This is why, historically, a disproportionate number of guerilla wars have been fought by primitive societies on the fringes of civilization: in the mountains, the deserts, the steppe. They had little property to risk (and much of what they had was mobile and thus more difficult to target), and they simply weren't worth a major conquering effort. Ancapistan is exactly the opposite: extremely wealthy, sedentary society with everything to lose - and everything for the conqueror to gain.

This, coupled with the state of military technology, which gives a massive advantage to conventional military forces (no longer can regulars and guerillas have roughly the same equipment), causes me to seriously doubt that ancapistanis would opt to fight a guerilla war, unless the demands of the conqueror were truly draconian ("cut off your right arms and become my slaves" rather than "pay me a modest tax").

....in order to truly 'comm'unicate we must have a 'comm'on understanding of the terms, concepts, etc. we use...

...and i've found very very very few people, if any, who share a truly 'comm'on understanding of 'liberty'...therefore, there's not much honest communication about 'liberty'...[which again, is nothing more or less than 'anarchy' right?...btw, why two words for the same thing?..and what's the difference between 'freedom' and 'liberty'?...three words and counting...yada yada yada...

osan

10-03-2016, 06:30 AM

....in order to truly 'comm'unicate we must have a 'comm'on understanding of the terms, concepts, etc. we use...

...and i've found very very very few people, if any, who share a truly 'comm'on understanding of 'liberty'...therefore, there's not much honest communication about 'liberty'...[which again, is nothing more or less than 'anarchy' right?...btw, why two words for the same thing?..and what's the difference between 'freedom' and 'liberty'?...three words and counting...yada yada yada...

Nonetheless, your point regarding communication is well taken. Communication is devilish business. This is especially the case where relations are either adversarial, dishonest, the stakes are high, or some combination thereof. It is just one more compelling reason for people to learn the habit of leaving each other alone, mind their own business, and leave each other to their freedoms.

It is precisely this brand of misapprehension that leads me to lecture people on the central importance of language and the principles of proper human relations. Unfortunately, the world could give a damn about any of it.

r3volution 3.0

10-03-2016, 01:34 PM

....in order to truly 'comm'unicate we must have a 'comm'on understanding of the terms, concepts, etc. we use...

...and i've found very very very few people, if any, who share a truly 'comm'on understanding of 'liberty'.

In ordinary English, "liberty" has a vague meaning.

In the liberal/libertarian tradition - from Locke to Mises to Rothbard - it has a very precise meaning.

Liberty is the absence of aggression. What is aggression? The violation of property rights. What is a property right? An exclusive right to use something. So then, what does it mean to violate a property right? To use something owned by another person without their permission. How does one acquire property rights? By appropriating previously unowned natural resources, by voluntary exchange with others, or - should one be the victim of a crime - as compensation from the criminal.

That's liberalism/libertarianism in a nutshell. The concepts are quite simple. Any confusion must result from people using ordinary English connotations of "liberty," without understanding the term's special meaning in the context of liberal/libertarian political philosophy.

H. E. Panqui

10-04-2016, 06:14 AM

....the 'absence of aggression' is what i might call 'peace'...the 'absence of restraint' is what i might call 'liberty'..'freedom'...'anarchy'...etc..

paleocon1

10-04-2016, 02:54 PM

I would prefer a real Republic which systematically excludes those with transnational progressive tendencies from the electorate.

osan

10-05-2016, 10:04 PM

....the 'absence of aggression' is what i might call 'peace'...the 'absence of restraint' is what i might call 'liberty'..'freedom'...'anarchy'...etc..

Or compulsion.

H. E. Panqui

10-07-2016, 06:50 AM

Or compulsion.

...or 'government,' etc....which is why i equate 'liberty' with 'anarchy'...

...i'd like to go back to my statement that in order to truly 'comm'unicate we must have a 'comm'on understanding of the words/terms we use...r3volution 3.0 wrote: "Liberty is the absence of aggression. What is aggression? The violation of property rights. What is a property right? An exclusive right to use something. So then, what does it mean to violate a property right? To use something owned by another person without their permission. How does one acquire property rights? By appropriating previously unowned natural resources, by voluntary exchange with others, or - should one be the victim of a crime - as compensation from the criminal.

That's liberalism/libertarianism in a nutshell. The concepts are quite simple. Any confusion must result from people using ordinary English connotations of "liberty," without understanding the term's special meaning in the context of liberal/libertarian political philosophy."

...firstly, are there any others here who perceive 'liberty' the same way r3volution 3.0 does???!:confused:...secondly, can R3 name even one 'liberty' candidate whose policie$ don't FREQUENTLY harm 'liberty', 'property rights,' etc.. (hint: i believe you'll find there are no 'property rights'...only property privilege$...)

osan

10-07-2016, 07:14 PM

...or 'government,' etc....which is why i equate 'liberty' with 'anarchy'...

...i'd like to go back to my statement that in order to truly 'comm'unicate we must have a 'comm'on understanding of the words/terms we use..

And this: http://freedomisobvious.blogspot.com/2009/11/langauge-and-freedom.html

r3volution 3.0 wrote: "Liberty is the absence of aggression. What is aggression? The violation of property rights. What is a property right? An exclusive right to use something. So then, what does it mean to violate a property right? To use something owned by another person without their permission. How does one acquire property rights? By appropriating previously unowned natural resources, by voluntary exchange with others, or - should one be the victim of a crime - as compensation from the criminal.

And this: http://freedomisobvious.blogspot.com/2009/11/what-is-freedom.html

Natural Citizen

10-07-2016, 08:04 PM

Liberty is the absence of aggression.

Individual Liberty means against Government-over-Man. And the term Liberty should never be offered in dialogue absent the term Responsibilty. Liberty-Responsibility. They are Indivisible terms that should always be offered together in context if one is sincere in his argument.